Don't Be a Victim of a Phishing Email

As defined by google mail, phishing is a form of fraud in which a message sender attempts to trick the recipient into divulging important personal information like a password or bank account number, transferring money, or installing malicious software. Usually the sender pretends to be a representative of a legitimate organization.

I'm writing this blog to share an experience I recently had. You see, this legitimate organization in my case is AlertPay. The above photo is the first email I received from them. It looks like it was sent by AlertPay indeed. However, when you closely look at who sent the email, it makes you suspect something fishy.

Yes, I checked out the site that was indicated there. It was missing an index page at that time. I also tried searching for it under whois and it was definitely not registered to AlertPay.

When you click on that link to confirm your account information, it comes to a page shown below. Take note of the URL shown on the address bar. Now that definitely isn't AlertPay! So beware!

I reported the matter to AlertPay, which seems to be the only thing I could do. Plus, I thought of writing this hub about it. I hope that no one falls victim to this scheme.

If you're brilliant enough to come up with such a scheme, why don't you just use it to do some good for mankind? Such a waste of talent indeed! Tsk!

Here's another email I received today. The email changed the sender address but still not legitimately from AlertPay. Do be careful and double check the sender every time you receive any email that requires you to log into sensitive and important sites.

(Update 2013/01/05) : Note that this is not limited to AlertPay (now Payza) alone. I have received one that was supposedly from PayPal as well. Just be vigilant when doing transactions online. You don't want to fall victim to phishing sites.

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)

Google AdSense Host API

This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

Facebook Login

You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

Maven

This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)

We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.

Conversion Tracking Pixels

We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.

Statistics

Author Google Analytics

This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)

Comscore

ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)

Amazon Tracking Pixel

Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)